Turkish Constitutional Court published on Wednesday the reasoning of its overruling decision on the constitutional amendment that expanded educational freedom in universities in the Official Gazette.
Turkish lawmakers passed constitutional amendments to lift the headscarf ban on Feb. 9 and President Abdullah Gül approved the legislation on Feb. 22. The law amends Articles 10 (equality before the law) and 42 (right and duty of training and education) of the Constitution, reported Worldbulletin.
On Feb. 27 the main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) and Democratic Left Party (DSP) filed a lawsuit at the Constitutional Court asking the judges to either cancel the amendments or declare them null and void, and halt their implementation until the case is concluded.
In June, the court ruled to reverse the law, but it waited for about six months to announce its reasoned opinion.
Top court, which also ignores that constitutional amendments can not be examined in terms of essence, as stipulated in the article 148, except for its form, both limited parliament's authority and could not offer any concrete ground as a reasoning.
The Constitutional Court chairman Hasim Kılıc and court member Sacit Adali, opposed to the court decision, underlined court members used the authority they did not have.
Court chairman Kilic wrote in the dissenting opinion, the overruling is a "grave mistake". He noted that it causes grave problems after this decision that political decision-makers are dependent on the will of court members.
Also, Adali described the ruling as "extraordinary strained interpretation".
Highlighting that top court restricted the authority of the parliament by examining the essence of the amendments, Adali said "any Constitutional amendments will not be offered and made any more after that."
"Court based its headscarf ruling on delusions," said Adali.
Court suggested legislative power of parliament is limited and it could not make each law with its majority.
It also argued freedom of headscarf does not comply with the "basic features of the secular republic", as in the article 2 of constitution.
The court defended that the amendment made features of the Republic "nonfunctional".